Often, the creation and evolution
debate is painted as a one sided debate between backwoods,
uneducated, KJV literalists and an enigmatically elevated and
enlightened priesthood of scientists. Anyone who gives Johnson’s
book a fair reading would be hard pressed to retain this perspective
for long.
Johnson debunks Naturalistic
assumptions not by attacking them head on, but in a more subtle
manor. Phillip Johnson’s background in law has helped him
construct airtight arguments based on logic and evidence, and his
knowledge of evolutionary theory provides a strong background for his
argument.
The title Wedge
of Truth is very
appropriate considering Johnson’s approach. He draws the title
from an illustration he describes in the introduction of the book.
Johnson claims that simply hitting naturalism “head on”
will do very little (like beating a tree fallen in your path with a
hammer). If one can find a tiny crack and insert even a small wedge
into it, one can split it into pieces. Johnson argues that to split
naturalism, we need only to determine the where the cracks are and
drive in a “wedge of truth.”
In the first chapter, entitled
“Phillip Wentworth Goes to College,” Johnson asks and
attempts to answer the question “How can we tell reason from
rationalization?” Johnson presents, piece-by-piece, excerpts
from a narrative essay by Phillip Wentworth, a theology student who
abandoned his supposed faith through his education at Harvard.
Section by section, Johnson critiques how Wentworth arrived at
conclusions and points out that Wentworth lost his faith not through
reason, but through rationalization. Phillip Wentworth claims that he
began to reject Christianity because it would not be reconciled with
his new enlightenment. (28) Johnson dismisses this claim by pointing
out that Wentworth does not demonstrate reasoning skills, but
rationalizing the position he was already committed to adopting.
Wentworth claimed that humans had created God and randomly assigned
the letters g-o-d to designate such a being. In a stinging response,
Johnson points out that it was no less intellectually responsible to
pick out “l-a-w” as the logical response. Johnson further
claims that "it is paradigmatic of so many modernist
intellectuals who thought they were dedicating themselves to reason
when, in reality, they were mostly learning to rationalize, to
justify what they felt like doing." (29) Johnson asserts that it
was not through objective reason that he abandoned Christianity, but
through a commitment to the “Harvard Faith.” (19) Phillip
Johnson shares the experience of Phillip Wentworth to act as a
paradigm for a generation of naturalists and to introduce his reader
to the most fundamental problems he will address. In Johnson’s
own words: “…it is a paradigm of so many modernist
intellectuals who thought they were dedicating themselves to a life
of reason when, in reality, they were mostly learning to rationalize,
to justify what they felt like doing” (36)
In the second Chapter, The
Information Quandary, Johnson asks and responds to the question “Can
natural law and chance create genetic information?” Johnson
explains that evolution relies on not only change, but change for the
better for the theory to work. Thus, the quest is to seek examples of
information enhancing genetic changes, which, Johnson relates, have
yet to be found. Johnson then introduces us to Paul Davis as he moves
into a discussion of the origins of life. In the last and perhaps
most influential pages of the Chapter, Johnson discusses Dawkin’s
“Darwinian Monkey” and his own rebuttal to this argument.
(60-61) Johnson begins by placing “the wedge” at the fact
that Dawkins himself admits the analogy is flawed, and drives the
wedge in further by reasoning that even though evolutionists know the
example is false, they still use it. To fully split this particular
lie, Johnson illustrates that the “monkey” (computer
program) had a designer who preprogrammed the ultimate result! “If
evolution were programmed by a computer which already had the
necessary information in its memory, then evolution would be a guided
process and hence a slow form of supernatural creation” (61)
In the next chapter, the focus
shifts towards the debate of Kansas Board of Education State
Curriculum Standards. In “The Kansas Controversy” the
question Johnson seeks to answer is “Can Science be defended by
Authoritarian method?” In this chapter, Johnson examines the
circumstances surrounding the 1999 decision that Kansas schools had
to teach the criticism of Evolution along with the theory itself.
Johnson illustrates how, once again, the naturalists made it appear
that the Kansas creationists, indeed, all Kansans, were unintelligent
and unenlightened who would rather legislate ignorance than allow
their children the opportunity to learn “truth.” Johnson,
in the opening pages of this chapter, depicts how even the supposedly
unbiased media had supported and even contributed to this unfair
portrayal. (63) In fact, Johnson argues, the new Kansas standards
were more liberal towards evolution than has been the previous
curriculum, and it was the evolutionists presenting arguments from
ignorance. (footnote, 68-69) To conclude, Johnson expounds upon the
concepts of Micro and macro evolution discussed in the previous
chapter.
In Chapter four Johnson takes on
what I would defend as quite possibly the most difficult question of
the entire book. Johnson attempts to argue that science is not the
only means to obtaining truth and, further, theology can provide
knowledge. Johnson first discusses how increasingly in the past
century, accomplished scientists have rejected the idea of a personal
God (from 20% in 1933 to 5% in 1998). Johnson then talks about the
“strategy” to marginalize religion as a part of culture.
One again, it is only in the last pages that Johnson gets down to the
business of answering the question he asked. Johnson states strongly
that not only can theology offer knowledge, it can offer knowledge
beyond that which science can produce. Johnson contrasts the
Westminster Catechism’s stated purpose for man with the
naturalist’s purpose for man: “to investigate, control,
and enjoy the natural world.” (103) In concluding this chapter,
Johnson makes a poignant comment which, I believe, even many
naturalists would agree with, “A scientific community that is
immune to outside criticism will be tempted to expand its territory
and in the process will forsake rigorous scientific practice in order
to justify conclusions that go far beyond what the data can justify.”
(103-104) Basically, he asserts that even though Christians and
naturalists do not agree on matters, Creationists play an important
part in helping to keep the scientific community accountable to the
scientific process.
In the fifth chapter Johnson
attacks “Darwinism of the Mind” and addresses the
question: Is the thinking, choosing self an allusion. Johnson opens
by discussing Dawkin’s so-called “selfish gene” and
the movement his theory has played in the popularization of social
Darwinism. Dawkins is quoted on page 107 exhorting people to fight
the selfish gene by teaching generosity and altruism. Johnson jumps
on this comment, pointing out how absurd it is for someone who
believes humans are merely products of their genes to call them to
fight against their genetic code. Moving through a discussion of the
self, evolutionary psychology, and moral arguments, Johnson arrives
at the conclusion to the chapter. As Johnson probes the self in
relation to the mind, he claims that the distinction between the
brain and the mind is one that science is at a lost to examine. He
claims that once we recognize that science can never give us insight
to the mind and self, are minds become open to other possibilities-
like that of the understanding of theology.
In chapter 6 Johnson introduces
the arguments against intelligent design; he argues in his opening to
Chapter six, The Empire Strikes Back, that the media has ignored, for
the most part, intelligent design because they are trained to
represent the debate over evolution as a very black and white
dispute. Johnson then introduces two major critics of his previous
works on intelligent design, Robert Pennock and Kenneth R. Miller.
Before even approaching their works specifically, he dismisses them
as arguing not against the rational challenges to evolution, but by
caricaturizing Intelligent Design and using the term “creationists”
specifically to degrade the proponents. Johnson then reintroduces the
idea of intelligent design, describes the arguments in brief, and
points out chief concerns and duties of an intelligent design
theorist in understanding and presenting the theory. Taking on
miller’s challenge to the theory, Johnson spends the next
several pages specifically arguing against the major fallacies in his
argument. Miller’s basic flaw is that he “grotesquely
distorts the design concept by insisting that it must apply to
everything or to nothing” (131) which, of course, is far from
what design theorists actually argue and indeed the “all or
none” hang-up is one chiefly held by evolutionists. Moving on
to Pennock’s argument, Johnson mainly dismisses it as
irrelevant (because it concerns itself with language) but humors him
by arguing the counter point regardless. After providing a rebuttal
to these two gentlemen, Johnson moves on to discuss “the
culture war” and points out a problem in page 139 in that,
people who “accept and internalize the logic of scientific
naturalism” learn not to deal with the doubt of others by
asking if their doubts might be grounded, but by asking whether that
person might have hidden motives. And doubt, Johnson argues, is
present in the scientific community, even if they seem to publicly
humiliate anyone who displays it openly.
In the second to last chapter,
Johnson starts by introducing the difference between theoretical and
practical approaches to problems. He equates the issue to travelers
in the road and onlookers from a high balcony. Although the theorist
and practicalist have intrinsically different views in mind, they are
linked. The optimal situation is for the practical seekers to ask the
theorists for advice but Johnson says, the evolutionists have not
only decided where they want to go, but have chosen a path and
decided it will lead them to where they want to go. However, he
argues, “you can’t rationally decide whether you are on
the right road unless you are willing to consider the possibility
that you might be on the wrong road.” (145) The following pages
are, essentially, a summary of the rest of the book, chapter by
chapter. Johnson deals with the situation he hopes intelligent design
will bring about, that is, a conversation between those on the road
and those on the balcony, and an admittance on behalf of
evolutionists that knowledge about reality can be attained through
other means. “True science,” he argues, “will…
never aspire to such an absurdity as a ‘theory of everything.’”
(155)
In the final chapter, Johnson
poses his “solution” for overturning the prevailing
materialist/naturalist thought over culture. Johnson opens by noting
how, in the recent past, scholars who rejected Christianity were
defined by their attempt to do so and today scholars, scientists, and
the intellectually elite have moved the discussions “beyond
atheism,” to a point where the question of religious beliefs
plays no role at all. In the previous chapter, Johnson concentrated
on tying up the lose ends of his argument and drawing the separate
chapters together into one cohesive argument, the chapter following
is one of the proposed “solution.” Johnson discusses the
role that the gospel can and should play in the world of academia. He
recaps the idea that intelligent design does not offer a new “system
of explanations” (again, the “theory of everything”
discussed on 155) but rather, focuses on asking the right questions.
(167) Of particular interests to me personally was the section on
“Technological Optimism and Literary Despair” in which
Johnson discussed the many undisputed benefits of technology
juxtaposed with the perceived “uselessness” of the
humanities fields. His discussion on morality and absolute truth
pitted against post-modern thought in the American university is
particularly poignant. Ultimately, Johnson argues, “human
reason is a wonderful instrument if it is grounded in reality”
and on the final page, points out that reality is grounded singularly
on the absolute truth of God.
Johnson’s book was an
enjoyable read and for the most part remained very readable while
also very thorough. I appreciated the first chapter opening on
Wentworth’s story and Johnson drawing from that theme
throughout, I did, however, wonder whether Wentworth would have been
seen in a somewhat kinder light had the article been reproduced in
full, rather than edited by Johnson- it’s much easier to turn a
personal narrative into a straw man when one has full editing
privileges. Throughout the book, Johnson seems to be able to subtly
reveal the most prominent naturalist scientists as little more than
prideful, close-minded, and cowardly men- yet does so without the
hint of an ad hominem attack. In this book, Phillip Johnson presents
a well argued, well documented case that there are, indeed, wide gaps
in naturalistic thought that require the insertion of “the
wedge of truth.”
